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“How can we in the research community together continue to utilize the opportunities that come with the UN Conference, the Stockholm Declaration and the new UN resolution on traffic safety that was adopted in August last year?” 

This core question has been the focus for the webinar series that SAFER has conducted together with partners and external experts during the spring. The webinar series comprised three sessions to get an even deeper understanding of the recommendations from the global UN conference, in order to utilize the outcome and initiate strategic work to support the new global traffic safety targets according to the new UN resolution. In the webinars, the members of the Academic Expert Group that developed the concepts behind the Stockholm Declaration and the recommendations in “Saving lives beyond 2020 – the next steps”, presented their strategic thoughts behind the recommendations and new ideas on how to approach traffic safety.

Prof. Claes Tingvall, the chairman of the expert group shares his view on the seminar series:

“It has been very inspiring to participate in the conversation with the traffic safety researchers. The fact that SAFER is now taking on the task of analyzing the research topics in the new recommendations linked to the global sustainable development goals is very positive. It is a challenging job and it is gratifying to see that it has started off so well within SAFER”.

New way of approaching traffic safety 
“The overall objective with the webinars has been to increase knowledge and inspire us to take on the new way of thinking, presented in the book. We have gathered our researchers around the recommendations to identify relevant research questions, current state of knowledge, possible gaps and to create project ideas for future multidisciplinary research within SAFER”, Malin Levin, project leader for the activity, explains.

An additional goal has been that certain of the ideas we found in the seminars will be included in future project applications and that the knowledge will contribute to the Swedish partners becoming more relevant also in larger applications, for example within the European framework programs. 

“We have in this webinar series primarily worked with the recommendation #1 and #2, sustainability reporting and procurement, #9 Technology (research and implementation of already existing knowledge) and the more general question of which actors can be relevant for researchers in traffic safety to collaborate with to a greater extent than is done today.”, Malin says.

New exciting research topics to take on
During the seminar series, we have identified many new, also several cross-cutting, topics and research questions, in which we in the traffic safety research community likely are able to contribute. For example, support the understanding of which technologies for increased road safety that will be most effective in the future, also taking into account future scenarios, as well as other societal needs, such as the environment and health as well as costs and conditions in different countries. Becoming even better at technology transfer also has a large traffic safety potential, such as even deeper look into how protection systems and preventive safety systems that are currently found in cars, can be used for two-wheelers.

Knowledge transfer is another important issue - how do we ensure that the knowledge in road safety that we already have becomes available for everyone, in different parts of the world? How can we truly democratize road safety?

Reliable data, and data that really creates added value and is useful, is another key to success. How do we ensure that we can collect, store and share data between different countries in an efficient way?

Everyone who loses their life in traffic is a victim of someone's value chain. This way of thinking can provide entirely new ways of looking at responsibility. If each company or organisation starts to regularly report its footprints for traffic casualties in the same way as for example climate impact, there will be an increased focus for improvement, for example with regards to requirements for procurement, actions and follow-up. Reporting and systematic follow-up is hence another important area that has huge impact on global road safety. In this work there are several new research questions we can support, e.g. the safety performance evaluation of various kind of road safety index and how to priorities different initiatives for improved road safety.

About 150 people from over 50 different companies / organizations have participated in the activities, the majority in all three sessions. 

“We have gathered many good ideas and relevant research questions for how we as a next step could contribute with value-creating research for the implementation of the recommendations”, Malin concludes.

Background to the UN seminar series
In February 2020, Sweden hosted the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety. The UN conference gathered about 1,700 delegates from 140 countries. Among these were a large number of ministerial delegations as well as representatives from industry, research organisations, NGOs and others. In addition to the exchange of knowledge and experience, the conference resulted in “The Stockholm declaration”, a strategic agenda and recommendations to achieve the global sustainability goals by 2030 and halve the number of fatalities in traffic between 2020 and 2030. 

The Stockholm Declaration also reflects the nine recommendations “Saving lives beyond 2030 – the next steps”, developed by the conference’s Academic Expert Group, led by Chalmers’ adjunct prof. Claes Tingvall. The recommendations are based on the 2030 Agenda and puts road traffic safety on the same level of global criticality as climate, health and equity issues, and means that road safety can no longer be traded off in order to promote other needs. Inclusion among the SDGs also means that road safety is the responsibility of a wide range of stakeholders, both public and private. The Saving lives Beyond 2020 presents a new way of thinking and look upon road safety in a larger context. 

The Stockholm declaration was adopted to a UN resolution in August 2020, a major step for improved road safety all around the globe. At SAFER and Chalmers Area of Advance Transport, we together saw a great opportunity to take advantages of each other’s strengths to both contribute to the global sustainability goals and be inspired and guided in our research.  

As a next step to maximizing our collective and individual opportunities, a webinar series was planned for; “The outcome of the UN Conference on road safety and the Stockholm declaration - Implementation of the nine recommendations supporting the new UN resolution and Agenda 2030”, comprising three sessions to get an even deeper understanding of the recommendations in order to utilize the outcome and initiate the strategic work. In the webinars the members of the Academic Expert Group that developed the concepts behind the Stockholm Declaration and the recommendations in “Saving lives beyond 2020 – the next steps” presented their strategic thoughts behind the recommendations and some ideas on how we together can take on the common challenges. 

Link to the presentations from the seminar series and the nine recommendations are available below. Do you want a more detailed summary activity, please contact Malin Levin (malin.levin@chalmers.se)